Choo-Choo Bear (big troll ganger) is in a Stuffer Shack parking lot when an opposing gang (The Evil Dreds) decides to pull a drive-by on his horny ass. He needs to find cover fast. Standing next to a mini-van full of Mormons, he decides to rip the sliding door off the vehicle and use it as mobile cover until he can reach the Stuffer Shack door.

Assuming a body of 8 for the mini-van, how do I figure out a TN for anything less than total destruction of the vehicle?

Just offhand, I'd say if he could do a light or moderate wound to the car, he has his shield.

This seems more like a strength check then a damage check. Figure the hardness of the bolts that hold the door on. And figure out how many there are. And call that your tn pluss how many successes he needs. If there are four points that he needs to break, and he only gets three successes, then he still has one bolt left to break. This is of course assuming one of my fellow mormons isn't packing heat. We are very protective of our right to have guns.

A mini-van with body 8 ?? It's body 3, 4 max.

If he has time to take maybe two or three complex actions he should be able to lift the door off its tracks too. I don't think it normally takes any tools. At least you can half way take it off, then the rest should be easier to snap because the door is a lever.

But you proabaly should not allow that if he isn't familiar with vans. Maybe make him roll a car b/r test by defaulting.

Okay, I've got some real life statistics here.

I'm in fairly good shape (let's say strength four). I went to my car (a toyota tercel) and tried ripping off the car door.

After 186 tries, I was finally successful. Can someone back-calculate the numbers?

Deciding that 186 tries was too long, I found something I could rip in one try. I was able to rip the lid off of a garbage can (first try!). However, I then thought "what cover would this be?"

My conclusion is - if you can rip it off of something, it probably won't be very good cover.

Give him an off-the-cuff TN (I'd give him an . Ask him how many successes he gets. If he only gets one, well, he's got a small chunk of door, maybe just the handle. Two or three tells me he's got the door mostly off and has turned the sliding door into a "hinged" door that he can hide behind. Four says he's got it well in hand, so to speak.

I wouldn't assign the vehicle any damage more than a light wound, as the door isn't appreciably important in the overall scheme of the vehicle's structure. Just remember there's no door, hence no protection there.

<Edit to reply to El_Machinae>Something to keep in mind, we're talking cover, not armor. A car door makes good cover, since at least half of it, you can't really see through, making it a little harder for a good shot. Second, a car door is better than air, remember. Those couple of sheets of plastic, probably aren't much, but, IRL, there's a chance you might catch a lucky ricochet off a sideimpact strutural brace or whatever the hell else they're hiding in car doors these days.

Besides, you might have hit the jackpot and found an actual armored car door. Admittedly, only a troll would be able to use it as a shield, but that's whose ripping the door off anyway. It all comes down to the rule "something is usually better than nothing".

Well, he is a troll -- possibly with strength augments.

-Siege

Also just to let him know, car doors arn't bullet proof. They wont even slow down a heavy pistol. So he really isn't going to get that much protection for his effort. He would have better luck diving behind the van and using the hole thing as cover.

Relatively, a car door to a troll would be similar to a lid to me.

In both cases, you're not really hiding where the person is. Cover implies that you're either not very sure where the body is (hiding behind a couch) or that some of the body cannot be injured (peeking over a cement wall).

With the car door, the troll would be easily extrapolated (since you can see his legs, arms, and head) just like I could be easily extrapolated from a garbage lid.

OTOH, I could see it acting like armor - just not very good armor. But that's a matter of the armors bonus.

Seriously, I'd say that ripping off a car door would require a number of actions. First, it's much easier to rip off the door if it's open. So, one action to open, and a complex action to rip. And a light wound would certainly be enough if the door was open. If the door is not opened first, I'd say it's a complex action requiring a moderate would - yeah, that seems fair.

It is an interesting question.

for him to rip the door off I would give him target numbers of 8. If it became common and everyone was tearing off car doors for combat shields I would slowly creep the TN up until it stopped.


As to if it is cover or barrier that depends on how smart the gangers are. If they shoot through the car door, it is barrier. maybe 2-3 points. If they change their shots to shoot exposed areas..I would call that partial cover. given that it is a drive by, they most likely aren't aiming. so I would go with the barrier rating.

Why would I give away money? What have you done to earn it?

If I was donating to charity, I'd donate to a research fund. Tearing off a car door is a project done in the name of science.

Sheesh.

If by "In the name of science" you mean "In the name of geekdom," then yes.

Besides! You ripped your own car door off! C'mon, that's just weird!

Now, if it was Random Guy You Don't Like A, then, I can understand it.

what i find more amazing than him ripping his car door off for an SR question is the fact that there were eight posts before somebody finally asked, "you did what?"

on-topic, a car door isn't going to give more than +2 or so cover, especially to a troll. cover (in SR) means that it's hard for you to know where your target is; if you're going to give a troll cover mods for carting around a car door, you might as well give him cover for wearing pants. he would, however, gain the benefit of the car door's barrier rating.

Tanka ... it's a little of column A and a little of column B.

See, I'm a communist. What's mine is owned by the community. All the community's resources are mine.

So, the car door I ripped off was 'mine'. As well, it was the vehicle most often driven by 'that guy I don't like, down the road'.

El_Mac - justifying jerkdom since 2003

Would a simple Strength test vs. Body be out of the question?

i would make it, just like you said, Str vs Body and if inflicts more or equalt than moderate damage he has his door.
..but the door aint still bulletproof..

strength vs body is way out of the question. consider that a bigass van only has a body of 4--that means that a guy with a Str of 1 has a 50/50 chance of ripping the door of your MPUV. at the very least, i'd say body x 4.

What about Strength vs. Body+Armor, with a threshold of Body? That should keep weaklings from standing a chance, and makes hardened vehicles.... well, harder.

workable, i guess. i don't plan on having any of my characters attempt to rip off any car doors in the forseeable future, so i really don't care about specifically usable house rules for it--i was just pointing out that having someone roll straight Str vs vehicle Body for it would be an act of blindness-inducing insanity.

i should also add that i hope someone, someday, comes back and reads this thread, and derives as much gut-ripping laughter from it as i have. minivans with a body higher than most heavy tanks, people tearing their car doors off, the suggestion that the weakest person in the world has as much chance of equalling that act as he does getting "heads" when he flips a coin--i'm wondering what could possibly top this sneaker of a belly laugh.

Just a thought... Since these are Mormons (and if I remember right, not very well liked), would they happen to have made their car bullet-proof?

Yet more evidence for me of just how fraggin' stupid trolls are. Why bother to tear the door off the side of a van when you could just dive around behind it and use not only the door, but the car structure and the Mormons for cover?

Did I mention they were militant fundamentalist cyberzombie Mormons?

Why not just consider the Van door a Roit shield for a troll? That would be about the right size.

A troll ripping off a sliding van door for cover is freaking awesome. 10 Cool Points.

And to those who say that it will be ineffective for completely stopping a bullet, I submit that it will still be effective concealment.

i wasn't talking about the troll ripping a door off, in some game. i was talking about el mac, who apparently ripped the real-life door off his real-life car. and nobody said anything about it for eight posts!

Your talking heavy pistol, ya dont drive by with a pistol! Ya gotta use an SMG! But I gotta admit, just for thinking of it on the fly, raise the shooters target by a point and give Rex Cars an extra point of balistic armor or 2. Not a game breaker, but hell, hes got a car door in the way now.